Part 11 (1/2)
Figure 5-5 The Answer Key, Quadrant 2, Process Health
The other coanization doing things the ”right way?” This (Figure 5-5) captures a business view that all stakeholders should want to clai, tested components of efficiency remain relevant: Cost: What is the cost-benefit of the e perform our processes?
Time: Time is akin to speed in the customer view Many times the same data and sources can be reused for this measure How much time does it take to perform a task or process?
Resource allocation: How efficiently do we distribute the work? Do we assign work by type and amount?
Quality: Quality is accuracy from the business point of view Even if we have redundant syste 100 percent uptime, ill need to track that reliability (for each of those systeanizations focus too et that their concerns should first be based around whether the organization is doing the right things (effectiveness) and only then if it is doing theanizations latch onto any perceived faults in cost and then react without deep or critical thought This error is compounded by the lack of information about the costs of services and production This is especially noticeable in the soft industries Manufacturing industries usually have a good handle on cost data, but soft industries like infory, software development, or education find it very difficult to price out their products and services This is logical, since these organizations nor what products and services they produce Ask a dean of a given college what products and services the organization delivers Then take a step further and see if the cost of those offerings is documented
Time, especially when it is connected to cost as a delimiter (person/hours), is one of the ers juon when they start to believe that they can ask for data that will allow the to actually talk to theet to know them Timesheets, time-motion studies, and tiue In a well-constructed et to this level without starting from the all-important root and all of its listed co the data Time shouldn't be used to ”control” your workforce It should be used to do the following: Ianization's ability to esti process and procedures
Round out other data, like cost and quality
If ”quality” is based on the objective measure of defects, how h quality the goal? Is quality a ”yes or no” decision? Quality is best described in terms of defects and rework, and like ”tiers to deteret a raise or any other human resources issue If you abuse metrics, quality can become a weapon instead of a tool
Ensure your metrics are used as a tool for improvement and not a weapon
Quality, time, resource allocation, and cost are all components of Process Health and define the business view of the Investanization's processes and procedures represent Therefore, these views should only be used to improve the business-not people Product/Service Health was exclusively from the customers' viewpoint Process Health is equally exclusive in its focus-and it represents the business view The customer will most likely never see (and shouldn't have a need to see) these metrics These are ”internal” metrics, as are the next two areas of the fourth tier
Metrics should be used to ianizational Health
Figure 5-6 The Answer Key, Quadrant 3, Organizational Health When we look at Organizational Health (Figure 5-6), we look at the organization fro: Employee satisfaction
Professional developnition
When we ensure that our most valuable assets are treated as such, we find that the organization ianizations address the Answer Key areas froanizational Health measures third or fourth This is in part due to political concerns When you justify the use of ain support if you first address the organization's health from the customers' point of view Without customers, there won't be a business to improve Once you've tackled the customer's view, you will need to ensure that you can afford to keep your workforce
But in an ideal world, one in which perhaps you are the CEO, I'd argue easily that the first place to start your ireatest assets, and then with your customers Sound blasphemous? If you have a healthy workforce, you can ith them to better define your business model, your future, and where you want to ihtforward The anization, and the environment, the harder they ork The anization will beco with their satisfaction, youtheir skills and their knowledge base Professional develop in this area Do you have training plans for each worker? What is the level of skill developer your workforce, the more you'll be able to do It should be a cri cuts come down The only way to do more with less is to increase the capacity of our workforce to produce more and produce better The best way to improve productivity is to improve the worker's skill set
The work environh subjective tools-like surveys But there are plenty of objective e for workspace Air quality Lighting Ergonomics There are many ways to measure the quality of the physical work environanization a pleasant place to work? Is it a high stress environain, you can find both subjective (ask the workers) and objective measures Do workers take a lot of vacation and sick tianizational Health is reward and recognition The simple questions may not require data collection Do you have a forram? Is it effective? Does it do what you want it to? How do you reward your workers? How do you recognize their acconize their work-related achievements? And on a nition and reward, such that recognition only occurs when there is a reward involved?
The bottoanizational Health is an extremely easy one-do you treat your most valuable asset like they are your ure 5-7 The Answer Key, Quadrant 4, Future Health The last area of the Answer Key is Future Health (Figure 5-7) It covers the following: Project/Prograanization is iic plan Goal attainoals Priority setting: Hoell priorities are being set, and beingon continuous ianization Future Health is not listed last because it isn't as ianizations are not ready for atteet the first three areas of the fourth tier under control before they start to look at large-scale iuidance and ju to improve processes They juon I don't put anizations drop these saht
The reason you undertake an improvement effort is more important than if you succeed at it The only way you can truly succeed is to do the right things for the right reasons
Measures around the organization's Future Health are mostly predictive, and this makes them ”sexy” to leadershi+p Butand rewarding true process irahts for leadershi+p into how these efforts are helping iress in process improvement is or will be reflected in the ood job on continuous process improvement, the custoains, and the workforce should also benefit If these three areas aren't ianization
Strategic planning, goal attains to focus on-but in theer effort to i your wheels These efforts are tough because they require true (and so You have to want to change Many organizations pay lip service to this area and don't really see the effort through to the end-and e're talking about ”continuous” process improvement-there really isn't an end
Answer Key: The Fifth Tier and Beyond
The fifth tier would introduce specific measures for each of the ”information” within each of the viewpoints presented While your root question could conceivably be here, it is unlikely If you find your question starts here, you probably don't have a need for a metric Instead, you probably only need a measure
The elements you'refroe in the fourth tier youout into a fifth tier: Unique customers by month, by type Number of purchases, by type Number of repeat customers It is unnecessary to list possible measures for each of the fourth tier's elements It won't make any sense to try to list each of ould be in tier six or seven-lower-level ht see data points as follows: Number of customers
Names of each customer
Products listed by type
Dates and times of each purchase
How to Use the Answer Key: Identify Types of Measures
The Answer Key can be used to identify measures you can use to answer your root question If you have done your homework and defined the root question and developed your abstract design, you are now ready for the next step-identifying possible measures to fill out the metric
The Answer Key can help with this phase of the process Take your root question and n and determine where you are on the Answer Key If your question deals with the value of the organization, then you're on the top tier, Return vs Investanizational resources, you're on the lower tier, State of the Union
We used some examples of root questions earlier One was based on the distribution of work This would fit under the fourth tier, Process HealthResource Allocation Using this tool, we not only can identify the type of measures we'll need, but we understand the area of focus of our question Moving to the left fro with the business view (investment) If our question is a root question, we can use the Five Whys And noe can also ask if our concerns are bigger than just Resource Allocation (measure centered) Are our concerns actually around Process Health? Are wethe measures around cost, time, and quality?